I’m sure it’s perfectly safe, and we know the starships are held together as much by structural integrity fields as by metal, but I will be damned before I am chief engineer on a starship with the engines not bolted to the ship.
Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x06 "Come, Let's Away"
usernamefactory@lemmy.ca 6 days agoI like the detached nacelles. It’s nice to have at least a few clear indicators that technology has advanced in the 800 years since TNG. And it seems like a logical extension of the idea that the nacelles are these big dangerous things that needed to be kept separate from the living spaces and easily jettisoned.
SaltSong@startrek.website 3 days ago
frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 6 days ago
Nah, they’ve never jettisoned the nacelles. The warp core is the dangerous bit (Voyager jettisoned it, what half a dozen times?). I don’t know if the warp core on the Athena is floating but… maybe.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 6 days ago
Jettisoning the nacelles was considered in TOS’ “The Apple” and “The Savage Curtain”, but in both cases they never actually did it.
usernamefactory@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
Saved me from having to look up the episodes where that happened, nice.
usernamefactory@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
You’re right, that’s the model they landed on by TMP. I meant to say it resonates with Jeffries’ original concept that the engines were just too dangerous to be near the ship, which I always preferred. And who’s to say 32nd century ships don’t have power plants in the nacelles themselves, like a lot of early fandom assumed in the days of TOS? It would make sense if they’re completely separate now. (I know we saw Discovery with a central warp core after its refit, but Discovery is a bit of a special case).